Fighting the Darkness
by Captain Fantastic
Summary: They think I'm crazy, but I know that's not true. -Just a very short one-shot that's been floating around in my head, so I finally wrote it.


They think I'm crazy, but I know that's not true.

_Nosce te ipsum_, right? Well, I do, and I know I'm not insane. The day you came to me was a Thursday. Maybe that was the Thursday that started it all, but I don't really think so. I've always been different. You said so yourself when I asked, why me? You told me the things I needed to hear—that this feeling of unbelonging that I am cursed with is not a curse, but a gift. I was meant for something more.

Of course, I couldn't believe you right away. There is no such thing as fairies. What did you call yourself? My _magus solacium_? I didn't know Latin then, but you helped me learn.

And you helped me learn so much more.

Why am I the only one who could see you? I tried to hide it at first, but it couldn't last forever. They thought I was talking to myself, but I'm not insane. I fought with them, you know. Maybe you weren't watching, but my parents and I screamed at each other until there was no oxygen left in the house.

I told my friends about you, even though you warned me against it. I thought surely they could accept it. They laughed it off at first, but then April told the school psychiatrist. That was when I knew this burden—this gift—was mine alone. I didn't mean to hit April that hard, you know. Of course you know. You comforted me that night as I cried. _Forsan miseros meliora sequentur_, you said, and I believed you. Better days would come.

You told me I had to save the world. You showed me the Darkness that was coming, and I knew I was the only one who could stop it—with your help, of course.

I'm sorry that I yelled at you that first night. That first night that I encountered the Darkness. I didn't know how terrible it would be. I just wanted you to take me home, away from this gruesome reality you had brought me to. But you knew my limits better than I. You knew I could only grow stronger.

I like to think I did.

When we lost I was devastated. When I awoke in my bed, surrounded by the sameness, I knew we had failed. But you were there, and you told me we would fight again. We could win. I just had to keep fighting.

I'm still fighting, you know. The Darkness is using my weaknesses against me, binding my body with human restraints, whispering acrid lies into my parents' ears. That doctor with that needle might as well be of the wretched _obscurum_.

I don't know where you've gone, but you'll come when I need you—I know it. You know my limits better than I. I'll only grow stronger.

My _magus solacium_, we'll defeat the Darkness, I swear. They may call me crazy, but I know the truth.

_Nosce te ipsum_. I know I'm not crazy. I know that you're real.

* * *

Dr. Filborne handed the crumpled sheet of paper to the anxious couple without a word.

"Have you read this?" the husband, Mr. Duncan, asked shakily as he skimmed over the cramped handwriting.

"Yes, I have," replied the doctor quietly.

"What does this _mean_?" Mrs. Duncan wailed, gripping her husband's arm as if she would collapse.

"Your daughter is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia." Dr. Filborne gestured toward the letter. "As you can see, she believes that she is being visited by a fairy, and that it is her task to defeat some sort of evil Darkness."

"You can cure her, right?" Mr. Duncan demanded.

"There are treatments available. The medication she is on currently seems to lessen the hallucinations—clearly, she wrote this letter because she no longer receives these visits from the 'fairy'."

"So she's getting better?"

Dr. Filborne sighed.

"We can manage the illness, but there is no cure. I'm afraid much of your daughter's mental health rests in her own hands. The hallucinations may be diminished, but she still insists on believing them. Until she is willing to move forward, there isn't much I can do."

"But when can we take her home?" Mrs. Duncan cried.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but until we find a suitable course of treatment I can't release your daughter. Her delusions lead to violent episodes—we must keep her confined for others' safety as well as her own."

"My baby," Mrs. Duncan sobbed, flinging herself into her husband's arms. "My baby."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Filborne repeated, turning to leave. He could hear the woman's sobs and her husband's fruitless soothing all the way down the hall. In some ways, he envied their daughter. At least this enemy she fought in her delusions—this so-called _Darkness_—was something she could see. Something she had a hope of defeating.

_His _darkness—the cold reality of this mental health facility—was a darkness altogether more daunting.

* * *

(Author's Note: I don't know Latin, so I probably butchered those bits. And no, this isn't a happy, sing-song story. Oh well.)


End file.
